Vote 90! It's not 100 years for us

Nikki Dancey (GMB & RTUC) introduces Louise Raw,
Shami Chakrabarti and Lisa McKenzie

On 19 September 2018, the GMB union, with support from the Reading Trades Union Council and Reading & District Labour Party, organised ‘Vote 90!’ – a celebration of equal votes for women and men, achieved in 1928. While the population of the United Kingdom has generally been looking back this year to ‘votes for women’ 100 years ago, socialists and labour historians have offered the corrective that 1918 was the year of the ‘ladies franchise’ – votes for women with middle class incomes and property rights. Only in 1928 were the injustices removed which gave women over the age of 21 the vote on the same basis as men.

RTUC Banner flying proud for 'Vote 90!'

Democracy was not yet achieved – plural voting for university graduates existed until the 1940s and 18-20 year olds were disenfranchised until the 1960s – but 1928 was a great leap forward. (Even today, a groundswell of support for votes for 16-17 year olds and the existence of voting restrictions on prisoners demonstrate that the onward campaign for democracy continues.)

‘Vote 90!’ presented ‘an evening of working class wit with a stunning panel of women: Shami Chakrabarti, Louise Raw and Lisa McKenzie’. With the GMB’s Nikki Dancey in the Chair, the event offered ‘a wry look at this year’s “Vote 100” celebrations and remembers the majority of women who didn't actually get the vote until 90 years ago’. The speakers presented a look at the history of working class women through the suffragette years and how they were ignored by so many in the early 20^th century, what the vote meant to working class women then and now and how working class women are still so often ignored and reviled in equal measure by the establishment.

Louise Raw, historian, author and Matchwomen's Festival organiser, spoke on the self-organising power of women with particular reference to the Bryant & May Matchwomen’s strike of 1888 as well as anecdotal accounts of other struggles women have played and continue to play a leading role in.

Louise Raw in a show of passionate discourse!

Lisa McKenzie, Sociologist and Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and class war activist, spoke about her personal struggle, fighting for an education, witnessing community destruction during the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-85 – and frankly casting doubt on the effectiveness of the vote as a working class tool – let alone a weapon – for winning social justice, peace and economic empowerment.

Lisa McKenzie takes the floor

Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour Party’s Shadow Attorney General and former Director of Liberty, ended by acknowledging the wisdom of the previous speakers and making a pitch for participation in electoral contests.

Shami Chakrabarti rounds off the night 

The speakers had their own books on sale on the night and were pleased to sign copies. The event charged no fee – though attendees were generous with their donations.

A panorama of the night